DanceJam.com: Hammer Time 2.0

The familiar-sounding (but just different enough to avoid a lawsuit) DanceJam.com is a video-sharing site boasting none other than MC Hammer as spokesman.

As life often demonstrates, some people in this world are too legit to quit. Other people, however, are just legit enough to take an extended profession hiatus and reinvent themselves as Internet entrepreneurs. Stanley Burrell falls into the latter category.

Burrell, known in a previous life as MC Hammer (and later, for the sake of brevity, simply Hammer), will launch his latest move in mid-January. The familiar-sounding (but just different enough to avoid a lawsuit) DanceJam.com is a video-sharing site aimed at the sort of folks who are intrigued by the idea of posting videos of themselves dancing to the latest Fergie joint for the whole world to see.

Of course, the site is going to need a bit more than Hammer's former celebrity to compete among the YouTubes of the world. Ron Conway, a member of a group that has invested $1 million in the site, assures the AP that the producer of VH1 original movie fodder has a lot more going for him. "I expect him to integrate all his knowledge into this Web site... He is the lightning rod for this whole thing." Conway, who met Hammer at a baseball game seven years ago, has been tutoring the musician on the ways of the Web for several years now.

"There is no high-tech lingo or business strategy that you can talk that is above my head. I breathe this stuff," Hammer said in a recent interview, adding, "Proper." OK, I made that last part up. Still, it seems, one has to pray just to make it in this bubbly Web 2.0 climate.

Brian Heater has worked at a number of tech pubs, including Engadget, Laptop, and PCMag (where he served as Senior Editor). Most recently, he was as the Managing Editor of TechTimes.com. His writing has appeared in Spin, Wired, Playboy, Entertainment Weekly, The Onion, Boing Boing, Publishers Weekly, The Daily Beast and various other publications. He hosts the weekly Boing Boing interview podcast RiYL, has appeared as a regular NPR contributor and shares his Queens apartment with a rabbit named Lucy.
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